The Tarkhan Dress, named for the

Tarkhan Tarkhan ( otk, 𐱃𐰺𐰴𐰣, Tarqan, mn, or ; fa, ترخان; ; ar , طرخان; alternative spellings ''Tarkan'', ''Tarkhaan'', ''Tarqan'', ''Tarchan'', ''Turxan'', ''Tarcan'', ''Turgan, Tárkány, Tarján'') is an ancient Central Asia ...

cemetery south of

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

where it was excavated in 1913, is an over 5000 year old linen

garment Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

that was confirmed as the world's oldest piece of women's

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

. The dress coded UC28614B is currently in the collection of the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

(UCL) Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Radiocarbon testing in 1978 dated the item to around 2362 BCE, though a further test in 2015 by the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

affirms, with 95% accuracy, that the dress dates from between 3482 and 3102 BCE.

Discovery

The dress was discovered in 1913 during the second season of

Sir Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

excavations of the

necropolis. During the excavation of Mastaba 2050, the dress alongside other linen outside of the Mastaba, believed to have been thrown out later in antiquity and sanded over, preserving the artefacts. The linen was sent to the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

for analysis, where it lay untouched for sixty five years. The dress was rediscovered in 1977 by conservationists at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

who were sorting through and cleaning 'funerary rags'.

Dress

The dress has a weave of 22–23 warps per centimetre, and 13–14 wefts per centimetre creating a grey stripe in the warp, possibly for a decorative effect. The main body of the dress was 76 centimetre wide straight piece of material. The

hem A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the g ...

of the dress is missing, leaving the original length unknown.

Discovery

Dress

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading